Passage: Ephesians 3:14-21 & Revelation 21:1-5    

  Description: It all comes down to how we understand God to be interacting with the world. Through the centuries, and stemming back into our Jewish roots, it is a question with which theologians have debated and wrestled. What is God’s role with the world? Now, you may be wondering why such a question is important, or you may have thought that all Christians think the same about God’s interaction with humans and events of history. But, we don’t all think the same. And, it is helpful to figure out what we do think about God’s role with the world because it effects what we see as our role in the world and our responsibilities in the events around us. So here are the four basic ways of understanding God’s role in history and interaction with human beings – see which one is closest to your viewpoint: -God set it all in motion and is now hands off in terms of human history. -God punishes, rewards, and teases people according to God’s whim and mood. -God has decided and pre-determined everything that will happen and humans are along for the historical ride to learn what God has decided we need to learn. -God created humans to be partners in the creation of a peaceful, loving world, and in repairing the world when things go wrong. Where do you land in terms of how you see God in relation to the world?

Passage: Mark 1:9-12    

  Description: In the tradition of the early Celtic church, when the child is baptized they are taken by the pastor and given to a member of the congregation. The child is introduced to the congregation and eventually, the child is given back to the parents. The meaning behind this tradition is extraordinarily meaning filled. You see, the Celtic Christians understand that every child born is a child of God and born into a community—a family of faith. Baptism celebrates the wonder and holy nature of birth by recognizing the mystery that we are born as sons and daughters of God into a community of faith. After the child has been given to a member of the congregation, formal words of welcome are said and that person places the child back into the arms of the parents. As the child is placed back into the arms of the parents, it’s like the community of faith is saying we trust you, we support you, and we love you as you take care of and raise our child in your home. The community of faith participates at a deeply spiritual place within the child’s family life. They hear the child’s name. They lay hands upon the child. They bless the child and together with the child’s parents they reaffirm their commitment to following the wisdom and way of Jesus. It’s not uncommon to notice that the lights seem brighter, or that there are more voices in the room than there are people as the ancient words of faith are spoken. It’s like the heavens open and the thin veil is pulled back that separates us from who we are and all the saints who have gone before us. We have the sense that we are together with the whole family of God. Baptism should give us pause. It should evoke within us profound comfort that comes from resting clearly in our identity as ones born of God. This is the way our tradition names who we are. This is the way that the tradition sets before us the statutes and ordinances that guide us with answers to the question of “how then, shall we live?” For me, this is both mysterious and cosmic.

Passage: John 4:1-15    

  Description: As the two of us sat with what turned out to be an on-going conversation this past week about “peace”, Susan was reminded of her Ukrainian heritage and how during the war many Canadian Ukrainians were sent to prison camps because they were considered “enemy aliens”. It was not enough to be enemy. It seemed better to attach the descriptor “alien” as well. Ukrainians were considered to be wholly “other”. It was a very difficult time. In the same way, consider Jesus’ conversation at the well with the Samaritan woman. In the eyes of the Jewish people, Samaritans were enemy aliens. The fact that Jesus a Jewish male was not only in conversation with a woman but also a Samaritan, would certainly turn the heads of those around him. But here he was at Jacob’s well, a place of common history between the two peoples engaging conversation with the “other”. As we pondered peace this week, David remembered the 19th century Jewish theologian Martin Buber who did some deep thinking around what it means to be in relationship with the other. For the two of us, we recognize that peace happens when the relationships are right, just and healthy. Further, peace is practiced and advanced when there is room for open and trusting dialogue. Buber identified two kinds of relationship: 1. I – it, and 2., I – Thou. The I – it relationship is the one where the “other” is objectified and dehumanized. We see plenty of evidence of this relationship in history and in modern times showing up in racism, misogyny, and warfare. The I – Thou relationship is characterized by creating room for relationship with the “other”. There is wisdom that shows up in the “in-between”. I and Thou is the relationship we share with God. The I – Thou humanizes and creates room for conversation and dialogue leading to a deeper appreciation and understand. It is a spiritual practice of welcoming the “other” into a relationship embraced by a holy and embodied expression of compassion. This is the way that leads to peace.

Passage: Isaiah 25:6-10 & Isaiah 55:1-56:1    

  Description: We can blame the Puritans, or rather the misinterpretation of Puritan practice of not celebrating Christmas, limiting or banning alcohol consumption, prohibiting theatre, games of chance, card playing and more. The Puritans were those who came on the Mayflower to North America, escaping religious persecution in Europe. They originated in England in the mid 1500’s (about the same time as Martin Luther began his protest against the Catholic Church). Some fled to the Netherlands in 1608 and then on to North America in 1620. What drew them together was a belief that the excesses of the Catholic Church must end. They did not believe that the Church of England had gone far enough in reform. They saw the riches of the church, the lavish lifestyles of some of its bishops, and the sexual promiscuity developing in society, and they firmly believed that this was not how Christians were to live. They wanted to “purify” the church and simplify the way of Christian living. Because of this, the Puritans became known as killjoys, considered overzealous in moral living and joyless in their approach. The Puritans eventually became the Congregationalists and, in Canada, the Congregationalists eventually joined the union that led to the United Church. So we have these Puritan roots. But I think something was lost in the messaging through the centuries. The original Puritans did believe in joy – joy in the Lord, joy in faithful living, joy in faithful relationships, joy and delight in their children.

Passage: Psalms 119:97-105    

  Description: It’s an old book. An old, old book – the Bible! The oldest stories were first being told about 6,000 years ago, while the content of the stories describe happenings back to the beginning of time. So why bother reading a book that is so old and has stories about people who lived 2,000 to 6,000 or more years ago? What can anything in the Bible have to say to us today? The Bible was written in pre-pre-industrial times, maybe not cave-dwelling times, but almost. So what can it say to us who live in the midst of a technological boom? Isn’t the Bible obsolete, with a few nice phrases? Yet the truth is that you can pick up this old, old, old book and be moved by what it says, be changed by what is recorded in these pages. People’s lives, not only in past generations but in our present generation as well, have been transformed by this book. That is the power of the Bible. I love reading the Bible, even the stories that at first are difficult or hard to understand. There is something wonderfully mysterious about coming back to a story I’ve read hundreds of times before, and suddenly seeing something new – a word or a turn of phrase or a nuance that I hadn’t noticed on previous readings. Suddenly the story takes on new meaning and new power in my life. I don’t always try to make sense of what I read – sometimes I just can’t. I may not get what the words mean, but I read them and let them float around me. I trust that sometime, when the time is right, I will understand what they mean for me and my life, and for our congregation. There is peace for me in reading scripture.